Wednesday, March 07, 2007

British star James McAvoy has defended Anne Hathaway's casting as Jane Austen in Becoming Jane - insisting "you find the actor, not the accent" for movie roles. Director Julian Jarrold was criticized for casting an American actress in the role of the iconic 18th century English author, but The Last King Of Scotland star believes Hathaway was the best choice for the part. He says, "I think (the criticism was) fairly expected, but I'm a Scotsman and it's really surreal playing two Scottish people in the last seven years, so I haven't got a leg to stand on. I think you find the right actor - you don't find the right accent - and she is undoubtedly brilliant. When you find a British person playing JFK or some real big American icon, nobody bats an eyelid here. We don't go, 'This is terrible - it should be an American man playing this part', so I don't know why we get so annoyed."

THANK YOU.

I don't who does it--I don't know if it's simply the media stirring up trouble or if actual citizens complaining--but whenever a non-British person is cast to play a "British" person, a huge stink is made about it (see Renee Zellweger in just about any role, Anne Hathaway in this role, no one but Brits allowed to be cast in Harry Potter, etc., etc.).

It's called ACTING. Please get over it. Non-Americans are cast as Americans all of the time (see Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Hugh Laurie, almost all everyone in the latest Batman movie, which is a hugely American franchise, etc., etc., etc.) and no one complains about it here. People here are HAPPY about it. We don't CARE. Maybe because we understand the concept of acting...?